Chapter 31
thirty-one
. . .
Witt
Encrypted Chat Glitch
My niece had a coloring book where you connect the dots. It reminded me of the stars. They aren’t connected in the sky but people connect them. Why?
The group text arrives while I'm reviewing next quarter's development roadmap.
Birdie: Emergency. Can’t make Margarita Night.
Within three seconds the replies begin.
Noelle: Me either. Owen has a fever. Emma just threw up on Matt.
Matt: Can confirm.
Parker:
Annika: You're laughing because they're over there.
Greyson: Witley just asked if puke is contagious.
Birdie: I have to fly to Nashville.
Noelle: Recording?
Birdie: Yep.
Parker: With...
Three dots bounce.
Birdie: Yes.
Greyson: THE Hayes Dieslich?
Birdie: Apparently America thinks we're singing a duet.
Parker: America is correct.
Noelle: He’s more famous than you!
Birdie: Hey, I’ve been on a break raising more O’Ryan’s.
I look across the glass wall separating my office from Maci’s.
She doesn’t know yet. She has mentioned Margarita Night twice since the launch, not because of the margaritas, but because she was looking forward to belonging.
To being included in something casual and easy, the kind of belonging other people seem to find without trying.
My phone buzzes again.
Annika: Someone let Witt know so he can tell his girlfriend! Feels so weird to say Witt has a girlfriend.
Me: I’m here.
Parker: Should we add Maci to the siblings chat? Or is that a step you’re not ready to take.
I’m ready but that’s valuable information that I’m not ready for them to have.
Me: Aren’t you supposed to be practicing? Home opener next week.
Birdie: Rain check next week?
Everyone agrees.
I don't. Because it’s Maci’s decision on whether she wants to go next week.
I know Maci will be disappointed. I pause, lean against my window looking out over the city.
It’s a slightly different view than the penthouse and I don’t appreciate it enough.
It faces west and the sunsets are fantastic.
It gives me an idea. I tap out a message to Dara, knowing exactly what I’m going to do.
As I step into Maci’s office, I smile at the new name plaque. Managing Partner.
She looks up with that smile that's begun appearing whenever she notices me first.
"Everything okay?" She looks up with that smile that makes me feel like there’s a glitch in my heart.
"Yes."
"You have that look."
"What look?"
"The one where you've already solved something I don't know is a problem."
Accurate.
I walk around her desk, not the one that was already here.
It was too sleek and modern. She needed one with lots of drawers.
Mainly so she can throw everything in there when I walk in.
When I interviewed her, I thought she was neat.
The first week she tried so hard for everything to have a place, but in the end, her creativity won out.
“Witt?”
She looks up at me with those amber eyes.
"Margarita Night is postponed."
Her shoulders fall before she catches herself.
"Oh."
"I know you were looking forward to it."
"It's okay,” she says as the corners of her mouth turn upside down
"It isn't. Noelle and Sutton’s kids are sick and Birdie has to go to Nashville to record."
She waves a hand. "I understand," she says smiling, much too quickly.
One thing about Maci is, she’s polite, but I’ve become remarkably good at recognizing all of Maci’s moods and emotions. This is disappointment disguised as maturity.
"Pack."
Her response stalls, like my words take an extra second to process. "What?"
"Warm clothes."
"Witt..."
"Comfortable shoes."
She laughs. "You're doing it again."
"What?"
"The mysterious billionaire thing."
"I wasn't aware that was a thing,” I answer because I don’t think I’ve ever gone anywhere because I wanted to since I started the company. For meetings, or research? Yes. For private reasons? Never.
"How many days?"
I finger a silver pink tendril that frames her face.
"One night. Be ready by two."
She studies me. "I have to work. I just got this big promotion, and I can’t let my partner down,” she teases.
“Can I ask where we're going?"
"You may."
She throws her head back and an easy laugh escapes her mouth. “I walked right into that. I should know by now that you answer the questions that are asked.”
I nod, half-smiling.
"Where are we going?"
"West."
Thirty minutes into the flight, she’s asleep beside me on SGI’s Gulfstream, curled against me with her favorite fleece blanket, pulled to her chin with a science fiction book resting upside down across her lap.
The last page she read was page six. She's exhausted. The launch of this year’s e-football league took more out of her than she’s willing to admit.
I tuck the blanket around her shoulder.
She doesn't wake.
People think love is loud—grand gestures and declarations.
I've discovered it's mostly observation.
Knowing she gets cold on airplanes or remembering the page she’s on so she doesn’t have to re-read.
Knowing she pretends she's fine when she's disappointed.
You love quietly.
The flight attendant quietly approaches.
"Would you like dinner served?"
I glance toward Maci. "Not yet. Wake us when we begin our descent."
She nods.
I return to the window. Below us, cities shrink into threads of light stitched across Texas, each city seems to connect to the next. But not where we’re going.
She wakes as the plane banks, yawning as she says my name.
"We're here."
She rubs her eyes before leaning over me to look out the oval window. Her mouth falls open. "No..."
For a minute, I think maybe she’s scared of heights. The subject has never come up. We’ve been spending nights testing new games our tech team has in beta and eating unhealthy snacks that end up in between the couch cushions.
Orange cliffs stretch endlessly beneath us and the Colorado River snakes through stone carved over millions of years.
"The Grand Canyon?"
I nod. "You've never been."
"How did you..."
"You mentioned it in your interview. I asked, 'If you could work from anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?' You said, 'The Grand Canyon for two reasons. First, I'd be endlessly inspired. It's nature's architecture. Second, because no one would interrupt me.'"
She stares at me. "You remember that? I mean I remember it now, but…”
I remember almost everything she tells me. Apparently that's unusual.
A driver takes us to the canyon where I’ve arranged to camp. Well, Dara did. Camping in certain areas requires a special permit.
By sunset, we’ve hiked far enough from the crowds that the world finally goes quiet—the kind of quiet you can’t find in the city, no matter how late it gets.
She’s been a trooper, especially for someone who doesn’t hike, though I wouldn’t exactly call myself an outdoorsman either.
Growing up on a farm and spending time at Granny’s ranch just meant I learned my way around trails, fishing holes, and swimming spots whether I planned to or not.
I take off the oversized backpack, setting it on the ground and remove the tent.
Maci’s eyes widen. “We’re camping? I thought billionaires stayed in fancy resorts.” She looks around like she’s looking for man eating animals. And they’re here, but I shake the thought.
"We could."
She grins. "But?"
"I wanted to show you something."
I finish pitching the tent while Maci watches the sky deepen from gold to violet.
“The sunsets are gorgeous in Texas, if you’re in the right place like at home.”
I think she’s talking about her home, her childhood home but then she says, “The sunset falling over the city is gorgeous, but it has nothing on this.”
Home.
She thinks of the penthouse as home. Two months ago, that would have terrified me. But now, it makes me happy that she considers it her home.
“There’s nothing like it. Dad brought us once. We stayed in the lodge but we hiked and explored most days.” I kind of get lost in the memories. Mom and Dad brought J.D and Greyson a couple of times, but Parker, Noelle and I never got to experience it with our mom.
“Thank you for sharing this with me. This beats Margarita night.”
I wrap my arms around her waist and kiss her lips. “The Canyon isn’t what I wanted to show you. But let’s finish setting up before it gets too dark to see.”
She organizes the pillows and blankets and the electric candles. I make sure the food and water are safely tucked into the metal food canister that the park ranger gave us. It’s odor proof so animals can’t detect the food. We don’t have much since we’ll leave early in the morning anyway.
When darkness settles, at first the sky is midnight blue and the first few stars appear. We sit on a blanket, my hand rubbing her thigh. It feels like she’s been beside me for years. As it turns pitch black, dozens, then hundreds appear, until the sky is saturated with light.
She gasps and whispers, "I've never seen so many."
I retrieve the telescope from its case.
She laughs. "You packed a telescope?"
"Yes. This is what I wanted to show you.”
She leans against me while I adjust the lens.
“The stars? I thought your other obsession would be chess.”
"Not the stars. Patterns."
She frowns.
"Astronomy is patterns." I point upward. "Most people think the stars are the important part."
"Aren't they? They make us wish and hope.”
"They're only points of light." I trace invisible lines through the air as her head rests on my shoulder. "We're the ones who connect them."
She follows my finger.
"The constellations."
I nod. "Those stars existed long before anyone named Orion… or Cassiopeia… or Ursa Major." I smile. "The stories came later."
She looks at me.
"So the connections are what matter."
"Yes."
I rotate the telescope toward Polaris.
"The stars don't become meaningful because they shine."
"They become meaningful because someone sees how they belong together."
Silence settles between us—comfortable and thoughtful.
She slips her fingers through mine.
"Kind of like families."
I look up again.
"Exactly. Like how we can all be different but fit together."
“That’s beautiful, Witt.” She considers the thought for a beat before she says, “We seem like we’re different than our siblings, but we all look at the same stars.”
“You’ve helped me understand that being different doesn’t mean I don’t belong.”
I tilt her chin up with my finger and look at the stars reflecting her eyes. Our lips connect, and the faint taste of the club soda plays on my tongue.
Our noses rub together as she says, “You helped my family see me and… that is priceless. I never knew how to explain it to them and then Chase told me about the opening and…”
I pull her into my lap. “We found our guiding star—together”
"What star are you?" she asks.
I consider the question, way longer than necessary. "I don't know."
"I do."
I wait.
"Polaris,” she says in a matter-of-fact tone.
I glance at her. "The North Star?"
The lips I just kissed curve into a smile.
"You don't ask people to follow you, yet they do. Willingly. Enthusiastically."
I think about my brothers always being the leaders, especially J.D. and Greyson. None of them would ever say I was a leader by nature, but I realize now because of Maci that I am.
"You just stay true to who you are. Do what you love. And everyone follows you and watches in awe. They find their way because of you.”
The words lodge somewhere behind my ribs. No one has ever described me that way.
She points upward. "Which one am I?"
I don't hesitate.
"You're not one star."
She laughs. "That's cheating."
"It isn't."
I turn toward her. "You're the lines."
Her smile falters.
"You’re the connections." My thumb swipes over her palm. “You help people see how everything belongs together. That’s more amazing than one star. Orion is more beautiful than Polaris."
A tear slips down her cheek. She doesn't wipe it away. Instead, she whispers, "I think that's the most beautiful thing anyone's ever said to me."
I lean forward and kiss her forehead.
"It's the truest words I’ve ever spoken except for these.” I swallow hard, my vocal cords trying to catch up with my heart and mind. “I love you, Maci.”
Even in the dark with just stars above and flameless candles behind us, I see the tears welling in her eyes.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have…”
She pushes me onto my back, and one tear drops from her face to mine. “No one’s ever said that to me.”
“I’ve never said it to anyone.”
“Me either.”
She stretches her body over mine, tugging the collar of my t-shirt down. When her lips hit my skin it’s as powerful as the heat from Earth’s star, the sun. Her lips drag agonizingly slow up my neck until she teases the corners of my mouth.
I’m a patient man but it has run out. Maci’s my star and I want to burn with her. Leaning up onto one elbow, I press her head into mine. The kisses are needy and hungry and it quickly turns into nothing but heat.
We’re naked on a blanket and given the very little cushion beneath us, the hard ground intensifies every kiss, every sigh and every little mewl that comes from her mouth.
“I was… almost there,” she pants out through ragged breaths.
This makes me smile as I suck on her tits and keep pulling out long enough so neither one of us comes.
“Please don’t make me wait.”
I feel her inner walls trembling around me so I slide my hand between our sweat slicked bodies and work the nerves of her clitoris. She shakes. And shakes as I pump upward, holding her around her waist so that I can get as deep as possible, God I love everything about this woman, inside and out.
“That’s… ohh…”
Her whole body tightens on top of me as her legs close. She comes and comes. Her legs draw closer and everything is so tight that nerves skitter up my spine. My fingers dig into her butt until a hair couldn’t fit between us.
A growl I’ve never heard come from my body roars from my mouth as I try to hang on, but fail miserably. I pull out in haste and make a mess of our skin.
Normally, I don’t like things out of place but this is love. And I’m beginning to realize that a little chaos is fun.
We roll onto our backs admiring the thousands of stars still burning across the canyon sky.
Individually beautiful.
Together...
Unforgettable.